He's on leave from the force now, undergoing physical therapy and additional surgeries, trying to heal from a day of prayer that gave way to pandemonium.

By the time backup arrived, Murphy was down, but not out.

"That's just the way we're made," Murphy said. "You don't go out like this. You'd better put up a fight."

Murphy was the first officer on the scene after reports of a shooter at the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin on Aug. 5. As his own squad car video showed, the two exchange gunfire. A bullet first struck Murphy's face, damaging his vocal cords. He moved over and down, but the shooter persisted. Murphy was hit several more times and took cover under a vehicle.

"It got quiet. It got very warm," Murphy said. "Your eyes start getting a little bit heavy and I thought, I'm not going out like this. I refuse to go out on a parking lot; not happening.'"

So he started crawling toward his squad car in an attempt to get his shotgun, as his revolver had fallen from his hands after his left thumb was shot.

"The shooter came around again and he fired a bunch more times," Murphy said. "At one point -- it was after he hit me in the back of the head -- I just thought, is that not enough? Did you not shoot me enough times?"

Murphy was shot 15 times in all -- 12 hit his body, three went into his protective vest. He stayed conscious and calm the whole time.

"If you focus on the breathing, you're not going to panic," Murphy said. "So that's what I did."

"What did you want to live for so badly?" asked WISN 12 News' Joyce Garbaciak.

"I have an amazing wife. I have beautiful stepchildren. I have an awesome daughter," Murphy said. "And I thought, I'm not going like this."

Ann Murphy, the lieutenant's wife, said she wasn't surprised he remained so calm.

"I always knew since I met him that if something goes wrong, he's the person that I want to be right next to because he's very good in extreme situations," Ann Murphy said.

Brian Murphy is convinced some kind of divine intervention played a role in the bullets missing their mark.

"For them to miss the important parts, there's something more to it than just luck. That's when I thought, it pays to be an altar boy," he said. "It pays going to Mass."

He believes his mother and sister were watching over him. His mother died of cancer years ago; he lost his sister Elaine to lymphoma in March.

"I like to think my sister and my mom were saying, 'You still have time to go. We're not ready for you yet,'" Murphy said. "They had God save me."

Ann Murphy was out running errands the morning of the shooting -- doing some back-to-school shopping for their kids, 10-year-old Simon and 6-year-old Jane. She had texted her husband a question but didn't hear back from him. When she got home, she saw one of the lieutenants from the police department headed up her stairs.

"So I knew something had happened, but it's Oak Creek. So I thought maybe a car accident, something like that," Ann Murphy said.

The lieutenant came to say her husband had confronted a gunman at the Sikh temple and had been shot.

"I will be forever grateful how he was able to get me through those first few minutes because he was able to tell me that Brian had been shot in the throat without me completely losing it," Ann Murphy said.

Back at the temple, Oak Creek Police Officer Sam Lenda ended the barrage by shooting the gunman, white supremacist Wade Michael Page, who took his own life after being shot by Lenda.

"Do you ever wish you could talk to him?" Garbaciak asked Brian Murphy.

"The only question I would have is not even about myself," Murphy said. "I still can't fathom -- why those particular people? Because the Sikh community, they're just a very close-knit group of people who are extremely kind and generous. They forgave him immediately."

Murphy believes part of the reason his life was spared is because of where the shooting occurred.

"I was protecting people who went in to worship God," Murphy said. "Maybe that assisted in whomever's intervention to say, 'No -- you helped. And we'll help you.'"

He did help. He's been told that when he pulled onto the temple parking lot that Sunday morning, the shooter, who was inside, saw him from a window near the pantry, where people were hiding.

"He had them trapped," Murphy said. "It'd be like shooting fish in a barrel -- all those women and children in the pantry. Some of the worshipers had said once he saw me, he stopped and then left and came out to me. If we were there a minute later, it wouldn't have been six people who were slain; it would have been much more."

"You said the Sikh community had forgiven him; have you?" Garbaciak asked.

"My forgiveness has no bearing on the matter," Murphy said. "And honestly I give him the least amount of thought possible. I don't want to give him any more power than he already took. I just don't. He doesn't deserve it."

For now, Murphy, who is 51, focuses on getting better. He has 21 years on the Oak Creek Police Department, but he's on leave now because of duty-incurred injury.

Twice a week he undergoes physical therapy. Additional medical procedures on his voice box and thumb are in the near future. Despite all he's gone through, he doesn't consider himself a hero.

"I just do what you're supposed to do," Murphy said. "And that should be reward enough."

"There has been so much good that has come out of it," Ann Murphy said. "And that's what we think about."

The good being how much stronger Murphy is mentally.

"Think about it," Murphy said. "If I can get through that, there's really nothing else I can't get through."

He appreciates the medical professionals at Froedtert Hospital, who during a 12-hour surgery that day saved his life.

"Those people are insanely good at what they do," Murphy said.

And he's grateful for the unity the shooting spurred.

"If it took this event to make everybody closer, I'd do it again tomorrow because it's important," Murphy said.

His wife interrupted, "Well, not tomorrow."

"Maybe not tomorrow," Brian Murphy agreed.

Not tomorrow. For now, he takes things one day at a time, being careful not to sweat the small stuff.

"Things are in perspective now," Murphy said. "Much more so than they ever were in the past."

Murphy said he hopes to know by the end of the year if returning to the force is medically possible.

He and Lenda have already received recognition from the International Association of Chiefs of Police for their actions. And he is being asked to speak at a police conference next year about the role one's mental state plays in the ability to survive a traumatic situation.

This Thanksgiving, he said he is most grateful to be alive and to be able to spend time with his family.